Pesticide Exposure Cause of ADHD?
This morning on AOL Health News:
By Mary Beth Sammons
In the United States alone, an estimated 4.5 million children ages 5 to 17 have been diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and rates of diagnosis have risen 3 percent a year between 1997 and 2006. Yet it is unclear what is causing this increase. New research is investigating many avenues. One of them is environmental factors such as pesticides and allergens.
In a study published in the journal Pediatrics, researchers studied 1,139 children ages 8 to 15. All of the children studied had measurable residue of pesticides commonly used on fruits and vegetables. Diet is a major source of pesticide exposure in children, according to the National Academy of Sciences, and much of this exposure comes from the common kid-friendly fruits and vegetables, such as blueberries, strawberries and celery. In a 2008 government report, detectable concentrations of malathion (a pesticide commonly used in agriculture, residential landscaping and mosquito abatement) were found in 28 percent of frozen blueberry samples, 25 percent of fresh strawberry samples and 19 percent of celery samples.
In the Pediatrics study, researchers found that for every tenfold increase in the urinary concentration of pesticide residue, there was a 35 percent increase in the chance that the child would develop ADHD. The effect was seen even in kids who had a very low level of detectable, above-average pesticide residue.
Unlike other studies of pesticidal impact, this one looked at the average exposure to pesticides in the general population of children and not at a specialized group such as children who live on farms, according to lead author Maryse Bouchard of the University of Montreal.
Because certain pesticides leave the body after three to six days, the presence of residue shows that exposure is likely constant, Bouchard said. The study found that children with the kind of metabolites left in the body after malathion exposure were 55 percent more likely to be diagnosed with ADHD. Almost universally, the study found detectable levels: The compounds turned up in the urine of 94 percent of the children. Children may be especially prone to the health risks of pesticides because they’re still growing and may consume more pesticide residue than adults, relative to their body weight.
More research is needed to confirm the findings, says Bouchard. But the take-home message for parents, she says, is to give kids organic produce as much as you can and to wash fresh fruits and vegetables — organic or not — thoroughly.
An unpublished 2008 study out of Emory University found that in children who switched to organically grown fruits and vegetables, urine levels of pesticide compounds dropped to undetectable or close to undetectable levels.
Denver immunologist Dr. Isaac Melamed is studying another effect that may contribute to ADHD: the inflammation caused by all allergies including food, pollen and dust. In his unpublished study, he found that the inflammation caused by an allergic reaction may contribute to ADHD. Therefore, he says, by controlling a child’s exposure to allergens, parents may be able to better control ADHD. Melamed says that although much more study needs to be done on this, in his private practice, he has controlled his patients’ ADHD by limiting allergic triggers.
Remember that all of this research is in the very early stages and needs to be studied more thoroughly before it can be confirmed.
So the parents who conscientiously feed their children fruits and veggies are at most risk for exposing their children to pesticides which may lead to ADHD? And the recommendation is for eating organic vegetables? Or growing your own?
Lunch at the Tuscan Oven
We took a road we don’t usually take, and suddenly, there it was – The Tuscan Oven! I had eaten there before, and loved it, but had not seen it and had assumed it had disappeared. Restaurants do that, even good ones, it takes so much work and so much effort to run a restaurant, and they run on such a slim margin that we have often been disappointed to see good restaurants close.
We were joyful to see the Tuscan Oven!
The place is packed. People who love good food are here. 🙂 You can tell that many of them are friends with the owner, and they come here often. The menu has too many good things!
We ordered the Antipasta Plate, with delicious cheeses and sausages, tasty olives and a stuffed artichoke heart. Unfortunately, we dug in before I remembered to take photos 😦
We each also ordered a small pizza, but even small was too big after the antipasta plate, so we ended up bringing more than a full pizza home.
I love the decor – an artist has painted food ingredients for the meals – this is my favorite, the artichoke:
We look forward to coming back here often!
Where The Wild Things Are (Apologies to Maurice Sendak)
First thing, early every morning, I get up to water my herbs and vegetables. I could do it later in the day, but later in the day is unbearable for me. It is hot. It is humid. The temperatures are in the 90’s, with humidity that makes you drip with sweat. I feel like a vampire; I try to get everything watered before the first rays of sun rise – directly into my backyard garden – and strike me with their heat.
Things are coming along. This weekend I will pick the first of my Black Krim tomatoes. I can hardly wait. I bought it at a garden club sale, as a little tiny plant. The tomatoes are supposed to have a smokey flavor, and very tomato-y.
There is a lot going on in our backyard.
We have a bright red cardinal who comes at late afternoon to take a bath in the birdbath. He is very cautious, looking around for maybe five minutes before he feels safe enough to splash. I don’t have a photo of him, yet.
We have all kinds of squirrels, because we have oak trees, and they are busy gathering and saving for the winter. They seem to be finding lots to eat in our backyard.
We have a dragonfly who is a regular visitor. He sits atop some of the bamboo stakes in the garden. I don’t know if he is looking for smaller insects to eat, or just enjoying a little perch in the late afternoon sun:
Our house is surrounded by chameleon, fortunately, unlike Qatar, they are not INSIDE my house! I am delighted to have them as neighbors, as they are wonderful for pest control, and in Florida – there are a lot of pests. The dreaded cockroaches, but also ants, and fire ants, and hornets, and wasps, and cutters, and lovebugs – well, you get the picture. I need all the help I can get. Insects love me, the eat me up. 😦
I think this little chameleon is looking for a mate!
(Maurice Sendak is one of my very favorite authors of children’s books, especially books for lively little boys. They have fabulous illustrations. As our son was growing up, one of our favorite lines from a Sendak book was “Let the Wild Rumpus begin!”
Skinniest People Shop at Whole Foods
This study is hysterical. It tracked who shopped where, and found that the people who shop at Whole Foods had a far smaller probability of being obese. They concluded that the poorer the consumer, the less healthy the foods.
I found this on AOL Health.
Skinniest People Grocery Shop HERE
By AOL Health Editors Jun 8th 2010 10:56AM
The skinniest people shop at Whole Foods where only 4 percent of the shoppers are obese. Why? It’s all about money–or lack thereof.
People who are poor and have less to spend on food try to get the biggest calorie bang for their food buck. That means they not only shop at cheaper stores, but also buy less healthy food.
The study: A University of Washington research team tracked 2,001 Seattle area shoppers between December 2008 and March 2009. They compared their choice of supermarkets to data they collected on the participants’ education, income and obesity rates. Obesity rates were measured by asking consumers to report their height and weight so their body mass index (BMI) could be calculated. People with a BMI higher than 30 were identified as obese.
The results: The percentage of obese shoppers is almost 10 times higher at low-cost grocery stores, compared with more upscale stores. And poverty is the key reason.
Lead study author Adam Drewnowski, an epidemiology professor who studies obesity and social class, says people who can pay $6 for a pound of radicchio at Whole Foods are obviously better able to afford a healthy diet than those who buy $1.88 packs of pizza rolls at Albertson’s to feed their kids. “If people wanted a diet to be cheap, they went to one supermarket,” Drewnowski told MSNBC. “If they wanted their diet to be healthy, they went to another supermarket and spent more.” He found that only 15 percent of shoppers chose a store based on its proximity to their home. Instead, almost all the shoppers chose a store based on price or quality.
Sticker shock: All the stores offered the same type of food, including fresh fruits and vegetables. But the prices were vastly different. The average price for a market basket of food at Whole Foods was between $370 and $420, compared with the same basket of food at Albertson’s for $225 to $280.
“Deep down, obesity is really an economic issue,” Drewnowski told MSNBC. Eating healthy, low-calorie food costs more money and requires more preparation skills and time than consuming processed, high-calorie foods. MSNBC reports that in a separate study in 2008, Drewnowski estimated that a calorie-dense diet costs $3.52 a day, compared with $36.32 a day for a low-calorie diet. “What this says is your social economic status is clearly associated with how overweight you are,” he told MSNBC.
Grocery stores and percentage of obese shoppers:
• Whole Foods Markets: 4 percent
• Metropolitan Market: 8 percent
• Puget Consumers Cooperative (PCC): 12 percent
• Quality Food Centers (QFC): 17 percent
• Fred Meyer: 22 percent
• Safeway: 24 percent
• Albertsons: 38 percent
— From the Editors at Netscape
Orange Beach, Alabama, Oyster House
We were looking for a place to have a nice lunch on our way home, and I was sure we would go Mexican. AdventureMan felt so deprived of Mexican for all our years overseas that he is still catching up, and when given his druthers, Mexican will mostly be his first choice.
But today – and this is the POWER of advertising – we saw a huge billboard telling us that The Oyster House was THE place to eat.
“We’re going to eat there!” AdventureMan said, and I sure didn’t argue – I am a big fan of seafood. 🙂
We followed the signs. There were a lot of restaurants, but only The Oyster house had big billboards telling us they were THE place to eat. When we got there, a spot was available right in front of the front door – “RSP!” shouted AdventureMan as he parked.
It was a nice place. We got a table where we could see the Bayou:
The menu had so many good choices we hardly knew what to do, and, as usual, we ordered more than we could eat and we brought the rest home to nibble on for dinner:
I had the Seafood Gumbo appetizer while AdventureMan had the salad buffet:
Then our main courses came – and my gumbo had filled me up! I had the appetizer crab cakes as a main course, and it was still too much food! But oh, they had a lot of real CRAB in them:
These were really really good crab cakes – and Wooo HOOO, I still have one for dinner!
AdventureMan had the grilled MahiMahi – also delicious – with red beans and rice. Poor guy, can you see his hand there, just so eager to have his first bite of the MahiMahi and I am so rude as to insist on taking a photo before he takes a bite, LLLOOLLL:
Plenty for dinner for him, too!
Victory at the Shrimp Basket
This is a moral victory. AdventureMan and I ate at the Shrimp Basket last week and we DID NOT eat fried food! We tried their non-fried platters, AdventureMan had the grilled fish and shrimp, and I had the blackened fish and shrimps. I took the photo before eating! (another victory, woooo HOOOO!)
Yes, I did dip my shrimp in the melted butter. I could not resist. This is one of the best seafood meals I have had in a long time, it was totally delicious.
On the table was this sign:
The oil has started coming ashore in Louisiana. It is thick and gooey, and it is sticking to the marshlands, clinging to delicate feathers on birds and suffocating wildlife. This is the beginning of a long, long, ugly process of trying to reclaim what nature never intended the oil to touch. It is devastating.
Sunset in Panama City Beach
We’ve been putting in so much time around the house that when it came time to go out of town for a family dinner, we went a day early so we would have some goofing off time.
We had a lazy drive down, checked in to our favorite hotel on Panama City Beach, The Sunset Inn, and then I asked AdventureMan “do you want to take me to the quilt shop today or tomorrow?” I have an old friend from quilting days in Germany who owns Quilting-by-the-Bay, one of the most wonderful quilt shops I have ever visited, and if I’m in Panama City, it’s a MUST visit. 🙂
On our way back to the hotel, AdventureMan said “Hey, didn’t you want to do a sunset cruise?” Yes, but I had forgotten, LOL. We drove to the dock, checked on tickets and their was a boat leaving in just a few minutes, so we bought tickets for the Sunset Dolphin Cruise and boarded the ship.
What a lovely way to wind up a day! They played hokey Caribbean music that can’t help but put you in a good mood, and they knew just where to find the dolphins:
They were playing all around the boat! It was delightful!
Back in the car, AdventureMan remembered a great beachy restaurant where all the locals go to celebrate the sunset. As the sun still hadn’t set yet, but was getting ready to, we headed to Schooner’s in Panama City Beach. If you click on the blue type, you can see the restaurant, the menu, AND the live beach cam. 🙂
The parking lot is packed and we think we will go somewhere else, we can see crowds waiting to get in, but just as we are giving up, a car pulls out, it must be a sign we are meant to stay, and we take the spot and walk toward the restaurant.
Special parking for Harleys:
The place is packed on a Friday night, but we get in with only a 15 minute wait. Everyone is visiting, having a little beach drink, and then BOOOOMMMM! I think it is a cannon! There is a countdown, and as the sun sets, the cannon (or something) explodes!
We ordered drinks – iced tea for me, a beer for Adventureman:
And a smoked tuna appetizer – yummmy, especially with the jalepenos:
AdventureMan ordered the Mediterranean Salad and a side of hush puppies:
And I had the Schooner’s Tuna BLT – it had a wasabi sauce and oh, total wow. Who would think a tuna sandwich could have so much taste?
How To Be a Southern Lady
You’d think moving back to your own country would be a piece of cake, wouldn’t you? We nomads know better. Young people who travel to other countries to go to school know better. Military people know better. Missionaries know better. Diplomats know better. Anyone who has spent time living abroad know that it works both ways – you have an impact where you are living, and where you are living has an equal impact on you. You may go back, but you are never the same.
With this move, AdventureMan and I have been too busy trying to get settled and to take care of the incredible amount of bureaucratic detail it takes to relocate. Even with AdventureMan ‘retired’, the days are flying by, and we don’t know why we are so busy.
For one thing, I am doing my own housework, and I am finding I am not very good at it. Like I am good at getting laundry done, and even folded, but I haven’t ironed in a long time, and the things that need ironing are stacking up. I have bought a beautiful new ironing board, and a beautiful iron . . . and some starch, the liquid kind I like, not the spray kind. . . but I haven’t set it up, and I haven’t ironed, not a thing. I have discovered that all my packed things looked a lot better after hanging in the closets for a week, most of the wrinkles fell out, lucky me. But . . . the day of reckoning is coming.
The worst part, for me, is cleaning my floors. My floors are supposed to be beautiful; wood and tile floors. They actually ARE beautiful, maybe two days a week, the day I clean them and the next day, but five days a week, they need work. I wish I had asked my cleaning lady in Doha how she got my floors so beautifully clean. I wish I had paid more attention. I keep looking in the store for some miracle, a machine that will clean them in a heartbeat and make them all shiny. . .
The wonderful thing about moving into this culture – and it truly is a different culture from the one in which I was raised – is that we have our wonderful son and his wonderful wife to give us hints on what to do and not to do, and we have his wife’s wonderful family.
Mostly, I try to keep my eyes open. Southern women admire things extravagantly, and after living for so many years in the Middle East and Gulf, learning to admire extravagantly goes against all my instincts.
In the MIddle East, when you admire extravagantly, you can make people nervous. Some people worry about attracting “the evil eye” of jealousy, evil intentions, people who envy you and wish you harm. Some people, if you admire something, will give it to you! It’s true, those stories, it has happened to me. So now I have to un-learn my lessons in retraint and learn to appreciate, if not extravagantly, at least enough to be polite.
One of my wife’s relatives gave us a house-warming gift, an iced-tea maker, with a darling card that states Rule #1 is that every Southern Hostess knows that a pitcher of iced tea is a MUST for all occasions. I like iced tea, but I have never kept it on hand to serve, and I guess I need to start!
Her second rule was one that made me burst out laughing – “A Southern Lady, the most interesting ones anyway, know that rules are made to be broken.”
“Just be prepared for people to leave your home saying “Bless her heart, she must be getting forgetful. There was no iced tea!”
And then rule #3 – “The only correct and acceptable way to criticize anyone is to add ‘bless his/her heart!’ and then, anything goes!”
At a party at her house this weekend, I learned a couple more – the first rule being that when you are invited to a great big family dinner, bring dessert! Thank God, I did take a little guest gift, but now I know – bring dessert! And it had better be sweet!
The next rule is would make any Kuwaiti or Qattari feel right at home – spare nothing in making our guests comfortable. This Southern Hostess had seating areas inside the beautiful air conditioned home, and also seating outside for those who don’t mind a little heat. She had a big basket loaded with all kinds of insect repellents to keep her guests from being bitten. She took time with each guest, and although she was running her little bottom off getting everything organized, she made it all look easy, and as if she was having a good time. I have a sneaking suspicion the truly was enjoying having all the people around and that her great big heart loves taking care of the crowd. She was the essence of gracious hospitality. Did I mention she has also lived in Kuwait?
Dinner was “Perlow” an old Southern tradition, made in a huge old kettle from her husband’s mother, and hung from a tripod over a roaring fire to cook. The actual cooking was the men’s work as they sat outside drinking iced tea:
Home grown peas and beans mix – delicious!
Serving up the perlow:
My Middle East / Gulf friends would be comfortable eating this meal – Perlow is a variation of Pilaf, and very similar to Biryani. No alcohol served. No pork. Lots and lots of fabulous sweet desserts.
It’s funny, I used to tell people in Kuwait and Qatar that it was a lot like Alaska; when the weather got too bad, you just stay inside most of the time. When the weather gets good, you go outside as much as you can. When it’s too hot/cold, you run from your air conditioned/heated car to your air conditioned / heated store or movie theater, or restaurant, and then back to your air conditioned / heated car and back to your air conditioned/ heated house.
In the same way, I am beginning to wonder if the South and the Middle East know how much they have in common? In Pensacola, on Saturdays, we have the religious people on the corners shouting at passing cars, not a whole lot different from the volunteer morality police in Saudi Arabia. In the South, as in the Middle East, ‘family’ isn’t just blood, it’s also who you’re married into, and there is a lot of emphasis on family getting together and spending time together. In the South, as in the Middle East, men tend to gather in one area, women in another.
In the South, they drink iced tea; in the Middle East, it’s hot tea. Both have passionate patriots, fundamental believers and a tradition of gracious hospitality. Both have a passion for hunting and fishing. Nobody much likes obeying the rules in either culture. Maybe I’m still in the MIddle East?
AdventureMan Cooks a Florida Bouillabaisse
One of AdventureMan’s retirement dreams was to have time to cook. There have been two times in our lives together when he has had the time – one, when our son was born and he learned Chinese cooking so he could stir-fry while I held the squalling baby (he had colic, and squalled from about four in the afternoon to eleven at night. Do you know how long every single minute is when you are holding an inconsolable baby?)
The second time was when he retired from the military, and spent several months at home, keeping house, taking our son to visit colleges, and serving up some of the most fantastic meals we have ever eaten. (I was working; it was a total role reversal. Kind of fun to shake things up, do things differently in a relationship now and then. 🙂 )
So when he started thumbing through cook books, I started grinning to myself. This man is very talented, and while I am very good at ‘survival cooking’, i.e. getting a meal on the table that will nourish and quell hunger pains, AdventureMan takes cooking to an art form.
First we had to make a trip to the grocery store for some basics. When you set up housekeeping after a (yet another) move, you are missing some of the most basic things – like cayenne pepper, or garlic.
Then – oh heaven! – we visited Maria’s Fresh Seafood Market, heaven on earth for this little old Alaska girl.
Fresh, fresh seafood, and people who know how to cut it. The prices are good. As we entered, a drama began, a woman buying a lot of (something) picked a fight, first with the man serving her and then with the cashier. We were there about half an hour, and during this time, she complained, loudly and vigorously, to anyone who would listen. I think she wanted her purchase comped.
AdventureMan bought what he needed, got it cut mostly how he needed it, and also got a fish head and tail for making stock – a great big grouper! He said as he cooked it up, the head and mouth were sticking out of the pot like “Help me! Help me!” but I wouldn’t know because I was upstairs minding my own business while he worked his magic on the Florida fish bouillabaisse. 🙂
Soon, tantalizing odors drifted upstairs, rich, complex odors, with a hint of sherry . . . it was divine. I had to pop down to let him know how much I was appreciating his efforts.
“Do you think it’s a little too thick?” he asked.
“I think it’s like a fish stew; I think thick is OK. You can add a little more liquid if it seems to need it,” I added, but actually, he is doing just fine without any input from me.
Finally, it was time to eat. AdventureMan dished the concoction into some shellfish soup bowls I found many years ago at that exotic resource store, TJ Maxx (LOL) and dinner was served.
Total YUMMMMMM. Bravo, AdventureMan, Bravo! I am having a lot of fun with your retirement! 🙂
Slow Cooker Cassoulet
When I first saw this recipe on allrecipes.com I thought “this isn’t right! Where’s all the fat?” Cassoulets we have eaten in the high plateau central southwest part of France had duck in them, and goose fat, and some mutton, maybe a little pork. They have elaborate rituals, where you boil it in a large enamel pot for hours, then bake it, pulling it out now and then to break and stir in the crust that forms, baking again, breaking the crust, for hours. Cassoulet is a ritual, not just a dish.
But I saved the recipe, because our son and daughter-in-law have gotten us intrigued with slow cooker cooking, and this week, I gave it a try:
The hardest part of this recipe is finding cannelini beans. After I finally found dried beans (at the Four Winds International Grocery at 9th and Creighton) I actually found canned cannelini at WalMart. (I know! Whoda thunk?) I wanted to go ahead and try it with the dried beans, so I soaked them overnight, cooked them, and then went ahead with the following recipe:
Cassoulet Slow Cooker
• 2 pounds skinless, boneless chicken breast halves, cut into chunks
• 1 onion, quartered and thinly sliced
• 2 large cloves garlic, minced
• 1/4 cup chopped fresh parsley
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon black pepper
• 2 (15 ounce) cans cannellini beans, drained and rinsed
• 1 pound turkey kielbasa, cut into 1/2-inch slices
• 1/3 cup dry white wine
Directions
Place the chicken into the bottom of a slow cooker.
Stir together the onion, garlic, parsley, salt, pepper, cannellini beans, and turkey kielbasa in a large bowl. Pour the mixture over the chicken in the slow cooker, and pour the wine over all the ingredients.
Cover, set the cooker to Low, and cook until the chicken is very tender and the cassoulet is thickened, 5 to 6 hours.
This recipe perfumed the house with rich aromas. We could hardly wait to eat. Such simple ingredients, so easy to fix! Toward the end, I had to add a little more wine and I also added about a teaspoon of Herbes de Provence. If you live in Kuwait or Qatar, or don’t use alcohol in your cooking, you can substitute chicken broth for the wine, or an unsweet grape juice, or one of the non-alcoholic wines available in some supermarkets.
Here’s how it looked close up, shortly before serving. 🙂 Hope you try it, hope you like it. 🙂
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